The following description is directed for use in a direct sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) communication system. One such DS-CDMA system is described in the communication standard known as IS-95 or "Mobile Station-Base Station Compatibility Standard for Dual-Mode Wideband Spread Spectrum Cellular System and published by the Electronic Industries Association (EIA), 2001 Eye Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. However, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the principles taught herein can readily be extended to other types of communication systems including but not limited to frequency division multiple access (FDMA) and time division multiple access (TDMA) communication systems.
Referring now to FIG. 2, because DS-CDMA cellular communication system equipment typically has an inherent limit on the number of ports that can be supported by each transcoder/selection system entity (XC), seams 200 form between the cells (e.g., cell 1 and cell 4) supported by different transcoder/selection entities (e.g., XC system A and B, respectively). One method to overcome the seam 200 utilizes a hard handoff instead of soft handoff (i.e., the soft handoff technique described in IS-95). In a hard handoff, a mobile communication unit is instructed to change to a completely new set of pilot channels which implies that no diversity selection function can be accomplished during the transition from the old transcoder/selection entity to the new one. Proprietary methods may be available to permit a smooth soft handoff transition across the seam 200 followed by a source to target transcoder/selection entity transition. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the source and target transcoder may be located proximate one another in a central site location scheme or remotely located from one another in a distributed site location scheme. Whenever a transition is made (i.e., the source cell drops out of a soft handoff connection), "ownership" of the call is passed on to one of the target cells' controller and associated transcoding/selection entity. The target cell's controller receiving the ownership then becomes the source cell controller, and makes all subsequent decisions regarding soft handoff till it drops out. However, proprietary methods tend to rely on a particular system architecture to be used. In addition, proprietary methods do not tend to conform to open interface standards such as the Motorola proposed "A+ interface" or other communication protocol standards such as IS-41 published by the Electronic Industries Association (EIA), 2001 Eye Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. Therefore, a need exists for a method of overcoming transcoder seam 200 problems which may be used in open interface standards.